


While Heaven Wept

by lateralus112358



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 08:38:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14565225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lateralus112358/pseuds/lateralus112358
Summary: A displaced god and a wandering dissident traverse strange landscapes





	While Heaven Wept

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been working on a pretty long Root/Shaw story, but unfortunately due to [insert excuses here], it continues to not be done. Not that I imagine people are waiting on pins and needles for me to write stuff, especially for something they didn’t even know existed in the first place, but still, I feel weird being absent for so long. In the meantime though I wrote this story. It’s pretty weird. Hope you like it!

Rain pours from the gray sky endlessly. Water sheets off tall buildings, running down through gutters to the ground, where shallow canals send it out to the edge of the city. Droplets patter like tiny hammers ceaselessly against the streets, whose crowns keep the fluid moving to the sides, to the canals, and always to the edge. Hordes of people under identical black umbrellas, hidden behind their own little veils of water, traverse the streets. Others walk the dryways that stretch from building to building, flared triangular overhangs that divert the constant rain to either side.

Root avoids the dryways. They never take a person anywhere interesting. She doesn’t bother with an umbrella, either. Her Motes swarm over her, keeping her completely dry even as she stands in the midst of the downpour of Above’s lifeblood. She looks up past the towering buildings and towards the sky. Even with the perpetual overcast, it’s bright to her eyes, accustomed as they are to sparse light after all the time she’s spent wandering the edges of the Spires. Too bad the city’s so bland to look at. Hasn’t changed in years. Even the crater in South Interchange is still there, though apparently a pipe had been installed to prevent too much water from collecting.

Root walks into one of the buildings, past umbrella-toting people bustling past the other way. Must be a shift change. Inside, the building is a gridwork of windowed, gold-framed elevators, each one corresponding to their own ascension shaft, each one leading to only one level of the building. Root strides to the center of the floor, and steps into the elevator. The attendant begins turning the crank, and the gears mesh together, moving her small box smoothly upward, her view of the central floor disappearing from the top down. Instead of blackness, or the inside of the elevator shaft, the windows look out on all sides to the city. Black, skeletal buildings rocketing up to the sky, bathed in a perpetual haze of water pouring down from above. A backdrop of grey skies, meeting grey waters on the distant horizon line. Down below, crisscrosses of streets separating the buildings from each other.

A light ding announces that Root’s ascension has completed, and she steps from the elevator. The top room is completely empty. Windows on all sides reveal nothing but rain and sky. Root steps through a door and out onto the balcony, then up the ladder to the roof. 

The roof is flat. Most buildings were, before Above shattered. The old style had remained here, owing as much to the people’s characteristic indifference as to their unwillingness to disturb the god that rests here. Literally rests, apparently, Root observes. She’s laying on her back, eyes closed, seemingly uncaring or unaware of the torrent of water constantly crashing down on her.

“I see you’re as lively as ever,” Root remarks. 

“I see you’re not dead,” the reply comes. The eyes remain closed.

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“I don’t need you dead. ‘Far away’ works too.”

Root sits down cross-legged, rain pouring down everywhere around her but never on her. “I _was_ far away. But then I missed you, so I came back.”

“Lucky me.”

Root drums the rooftop with her fingers, looking around at the clouded horizon. “They’re saying First Landing’s going to be underwater soon.”

“They’ve been saying that for a thousand years,” the god scoffs. “Central Turnstile’s still dry. They keep saying it because they don’t know how to do anything else.”

“Sounds like you’re bored with them.”

“I was fine until someone started bothering me,” she says pointedly.

“Sameen, you know you always have fun with me.”

“I know _you_ always have fun.”

“Well, that’s a start, isn’t it?”

The god finally opens her eyes, and turns her head to give a long, pointed glare at Root, before returning to her prior position. “Whatever you’re here for, just spit it out so I can say no and go back to ignoring you.”

“I found a way to the Furthest Shore.”

Shaw, the (relatively) recently earthbound god, seems unimpressed. “It doesn’t exist.”

“Of course it does.” Root says matter-of-factly.

“What makes you think this time’ll be any different?”

“A god told me it would.”

Shaw’s eyes open again, and she frowns. “No I didn’t.”

“Not you, sweetie,” Root smirks. “You think you’re the only god I talk to?” When Shaw doesn’t respond (presumably out of reluctance to admit her jealousy), Root adds, “I found a boat.”

***

At the edge of the city, canals at equally spaced intervals discard the constant deluge into the water that surrounds the only civilization Root’s ever known. A few feet below ground level, the ocean extends on all sides in all directions. The central Spire on this side of the city, a horizontal platform that extends from the street’s end out over the water, continues off towards the horizon beyond sight. The Spires split and rejoin sporadically as they spread outward. 

Perched at the city-end of the Spire is one of the Crawlers, a gear-driven mechanism presumably intended to facilitate traversal of the Spires. The thin, spindly frame of the device suspends a cushioned bench, shaped almost like a swing. An overhang prevents the rainfall from reaching those seated beneath, and the gearwork situated behind the bench delivers motive force to the legs of the mechanism, which extend to either side, half above the Spire, and half below, each locking into the tracks set into the Spire. A hand crank rests to either side of the bench.

Root reaches for the crank as she seats herself on the bench, but Shaw taps the mechanism and the gearwork springs to life on its own, carrying them both forward onto the Spire, accompanied by the gentle click and whir of the gears. There are advantages to traveling with a god.

There are disadvantages too, of course, like when she’s surly and sits as close to the edge of the bench as possible. “I don’t bite, Sameen. And I don’t mind if you do,” she adds thoughtfully. “I kind of like it, actually.”

“Can we not have at least one of these trips in silence?”

“We haven’t talked in years, Sameen. You don’t want to catch up?”

“No.”

Root falls silent, and watches the small waves rippling the waters beneath their Spire. It’s been getting steadily darker as they move away from the city; the sun’s light has a very limited range. Some of the furthest Spires Root’s walked are in pitch black. She’d crawled across them on her stomach, hands clutching the sides, pulling her forward. She’d found her Motes there.

Their Crawler makes a sharp turn at one of the Spire’s branches, toppling Root into Shaw’s lap. She neglects to move herself away.

“Why is this so important to you?” Shaw asks abruptly.

“It’s not my fault your legs are so comfortable.”

“I mean this stupid search.”

Root rolls over onto her back, kicking her legs over the end of the bench. Suspended outside the overhang, they remain dry. “We’ve done the same thing over and over for so long, Sameen. I can’t keep doing that.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

Root shrugs. “I’m not wrong. Besides, you’ll be with me.”

The Crawler tracks come to an end, forcing Root and Shaw to continue along the narrow, dimly-lit platforms on foot. The nature of the tracks suggest they were constructed, but who, or why, or how, evades discovery. Root remembers the rise of the city, had taken part in its construction. She has no such recollection of the Spires. 

The rain, unlike the light, is unabated. Shaw, with one of the few powers remaining to a fallen god, seems indifferent to the lack of light, so Root takes her hand and allows herself to be guided along.

Root can still see fine, of course, but there’s no particular need for Shaw to know that.

She’s beginning to struggle, though, by the time they reach the end of this particular Spire. She can faintly see the outline of the boat, its three masts a slightly lighter color than the black behind it. The boat is turned with its side adjacent to the Spire, the deck several feet above the platform’s end. It’s large enough to hold dozens of people on its deck, though Root’s never heard of one being used in that way. It’s been many years since a boat’s been seen at all. Shaw jumps up easily, and then reaches down to pull Root onboard. 

“You know I can’t use these things,” Shaw says.

“Don’t worry, I can,” Root replies, pulling a lever to disengage the locking mechanism. The gears running through the masts begin to clack as they spin from stored motive force, and unfurl the sails. 

The boat begins to turn away from the Spire’s edge, towards the barely visible wall of water that rises from the ocean and up into the sky, beyond the reach of light. Root and Shaw enter the boat’s main cabin. It’s not a good idea to be outside during a voyage. 

The ship creaks as it begins its ascent up the water wall. The cabin, built to rotate within the outer structure of the boat, remains upright.

The cabin is fairly cramped, with only one bed, endtables on either side topped with candles (bolted to the tables), one small window behind the headboard, and very little room for anything else. “Might be kind of a tight squeeze,” Root observes.

“You can take the floor.” Shaw flops down onto the bed.

***

Root sits next to Shaw on the bed, absently looking out the window. It’s pitch black now; nothing can be seen apart from splashes of water on the glass.

“So did this other god happen to tell you how long this would take?” Shaw asks.

“Sounds like someone’s jealous.”

“I just want to know how long I’m going to be stuck here with you trying to get me to have sex with you.”

“I usually don’t have to try very hard.”

Shaw seems to be about to make some sort of retort, then shrugs and says, “I have bad impulse control.” She stretches out on the bed. “And after years of boredom even you start to look appealing.”

“You’re so sweet, Sameen.”

A shudder rocks the boat. Shaw peers out the window. “We’ve hit another Whirl.” 

Stretches of ocean that make enormous spirals seem to be common out here. Root supposes the designers of these boats knew what they were doing, presuming they existed at all, and the boats weren’t simply a natural occurring phenomenon. ‘I don’t know’ is always Shaw’s response when Root poses these questions. For a god, she seems remarkably ill-informed about the nature of existence. 

Shaw frowns, settling back onto the bed and glancing at Root. “What are you doing?”

Root smiles. “Just thinking. Why did you come here?”

“I told you, bad impulse control. And I get bored.”

“No,” Root says. “Not with me, I mean, why _here_? Why land at South Interchange? Why our city at all? Were you just that desperate to spend time with me?”

“Didn’t really choose it.” Shaw shrugs. “Haven’t we had this conversation before?”

“Sorry,” Root says. “I still get caught in cycles sometimes. I guess I keep hoping it’ll go differently this time.”

Shaw sighs. “Honestly, Root, if I knew how any of this worked I’d tell you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

The boat creaks again.

And then again, louder.

A burst of water and shattered wood fills the cabin.

***

Root wakes up to light.

Not much light, but light nonetheless. There are stars above her, mired in a black sky. Root hasn’t seen stars since Above had torn apart and poured endless rain down on them. She’d almost forgotten what they looked like.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a piece of mast drift by her. She turns her head, noting that she’s lying on her back, and then further notes that she’s lying on the shimmering, gently rippling water, with nothing beneath her to hold her up.

Nothing except, apparently, her Motes. Curious. she shakily makes her way to her feet, and tries to balance.

She falls a few times. The water still distorts in waves, and throws her off balance.

Soon she figures out the pattern, though, and walks along between waves, her section of water fairly inert, vertically at least.

It’s quiet out here. She wonders how long it’s been since anyone came here.

Now she just needs to find Shaw.

She tries to locate the floating mast, hoping she can follow it back to the rest of the wreckage, and her stranded god. Not that Shaw’s in any real danger, but Root’s starting to get lonely. 

She looks up at the stars again. It reminds her of that night, out on the Spires, when she watched while heaven wept and a god fell from the skies. When she’d known for sure that their cycles could be broken.

“Root!” 

She hears the voice distantly, and begins walking towards it, hopping over the crests of small waves as they move towards her. 

“Root!”

She finds Shaw treading water amidst a few fragments of their boat. “Nice night, huh, Sameen?”

Shaw turns to look at her. “You can walk on water?”

“You can’t?” Root teases, “I can carry you, if you want,” she adds with a smirk.

“Fuck you. I’ll swim.”

The water spreads in all directions; no particular destination presents itself. But they have plenty of time. Root can always rest, if she needs to, and Shaw doesn’t need to rest at all. Or even breathe, really. She is a god, after all.

***

White, glowing sand crunches beneath their feet. This place is bright, even though the sky above remains black, albeit dotted with stars. The light seems to be coming from the sand itself. Small waves lap against the shore, but never seem to take any sand with them.

“So what now?” Shaw asks. “Are we going to stay here?”

Root looks past the shore, towards trees, and hills, and other things too distant for her to discern. “Seems like another cycle, doesn’t it? Same thing, different place.” Root turns back to Shaw. “Wait, ‘we’? You’d stay here with me?”

Shaw just shrugs.

Root smiles. “What if we just kept going? Saw whatever’s out there?”

Shaw nods. “Sounds fun.”

Side by side they leave the Furthest Shore.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is very loosely inspired by While Heaven Wept’s album Vast Oceans Lachrymose and Garth Nix’s The Keys To The Kingdom series.


End file.
